


Percussive Maintenance

by allislaughter



Series: The Eagle Has Landed [6]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allislaughter/pseuds/allislaughter
Summary: Sometimes to get a machine working or the lights running, you hit it and it'll fix the issue. Apollo is neither a machine nor has lights.
Relationships: John Hancock (Fallout)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: The Eagle Has Landed [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901959
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Percussive Maintenance

Hancock fiddles with the buttons on the old jukebox, trying to get the damn thing to start working. He settles for smacking the side of the machine, and smiles as music crackles out of the old worn speakers. “There we go,” he laughs triumphantly. “Just need a bit of good ol’  _ percussive maintenance.” _

“Do you have to hit it?” Apollo asks, chewing on his pen like a lollipop. “You might hurt it.”

Hancock snorts in amusement. “Sunshine, you’ve  _ got _ to learn the difference between machines that are people and actual machines.”

“S’not my fault distinction’s so confusing,” Apollo counters. “What song is this?”

“Dunno,” Hancock says, rocking back and forth. “Got a good groove though.” He grins and holds out a hand. “Want to dance?”

“No thanks,” Apollo answers, not quite catching the intent. “I want to finish this pom— Poem. Pom-poms... Gymnastics...” He scribbles down a word and Hancock shakes his head.

“Always going to be second fiddle to his writing unless I up my word game,” he chuckles. He pats his pockets.  _ Speaking _ of upping his word game, there’s a tin of mentats with his name on it, but he seems to have left it elsewhere. “Hey, I’ll be right back, alright? Don’t go anywhere.”

“Mm-hmm,” Apollo answers, eyes on his writing as Hancock leaves the room.

Hancock walks through another doorway, pausing in it as he suddenly forgets what he’s in there for. He pats his pockets— Right, mentats, and then continues only to stop when he sees a random Lab Legato magazine he remembers Nick bringing for Apollo during his last visit checking to make sure Hancock’s keeping him safe and fed. He spys the words  _ “Traveling - The Earth as a Spaceship by Lance Ferris with poetry by Apollo Ray” _ written on the cover.

He picks it up to skim through. And he realizes only after he’s read through the entire magazine that 1. His legs hurt from having stood there the entire time 2. He doesn’t know how much time has passed 3. He still hasn’t found his mentats. Hancock groans and drops the magazine back on the table and glances to the left of it. ...Oh. That’s where they went.

Hancock snatches up the mentats and pops open the tin. The familiar taste of tarberry hits his tongue, and he smiles, slipping the tin into his coat and heading back to where he left Apollo.

The jukebox has long gone silent, Apollo’s journal and pen resting where Apollo had left it with the man nowhere to be seen. Just a note on the open page, in terrible, hurried handwriting,  _ “usk Mich wr Fwrue is .” _

“Damn,” Hancock rubs his chin trying to parse what even the mentats can’t help him parse. “He writes worse than he talks sometimes, don’t he...? Unless he speaks some other languages... That would explain a lot.”

...He better find Apollo, just in case whatever he was trying to write is something that’s going to get him into trouble... Again...

* * *

...Apollo isn’t even certain how he got into trouble this time, and that’s impressive even for him. It’s not like he even  _ left _ Goodneighbor, and everyone in Goodneighbor knows Hancock would kill them for messing with him. All he did was step out to find that really nice drifter who looks a lot like Deacon and ask if she could take a letter to Nick, like he’s done several times before.

The next thing he knows, he’s passing by the Third Rail and stumbles into what looks like a riot of whatever Clearly Not Sober people were kicked out for Clearly Being Needlessly Rowdy.

This kind of thing reminds him why he stays sober. But it also reminds him that people make stupid mistakes when drunk or high, including violent ones.

And he has a really punchable face, to some people, for some reason.

The fighting gets bad enough that Hancock’s Triggermen have to intervene, all while Apollo tries to slip by unharmed, since the alternative is to try and navigate a way he isn’t used to and getting lost in the process. All with a letter in his pocket he’s trying to get to the nice drifter who  _ clearly _ isn’t Deacon.

He sees a familiar red coat and a pair of glowing yellow eyes approaching from the opposite way, and Hancock sees him, sees what’s happening, and is quick to try and join the action, only to have to dodge when someone tries drunkenly swinging a tire iron at him.

“Hancock!” Apollo gasps. He moves forward despite knowing he can’t help, but stops, hearing something moving behind him. He turns his gaze in time to see the head of a pipe wrench swinging right for his face.

_ TWACK! _

Apollo hits the ground and flips onto his stomach, dizzy from the bright white pain ringing through his head. He can barely hear the shouts and gunfire over the buzzing akin to fluorescent lights rattling through him at deafening decibels.

He passes out.

* * *

Hancock barely makes it outside before he runs into one Detective Nick Valentine who looks equally surprised to see him.

“John,” Nick greets. “Is Apollo in?”

“Apollo?” Hancock asks. “Seems Sunshine wandered off when I wasn’t looking. I was about to hunt him down before he got himself into trouble if you want to help look for him— What are you looking for him for anyway? Didn’t think detectives made house calls.”

“I, uh...” Nick’s eyes dart to some shadow in the corner that when Hancock looks at seems to vanish as if it wasn’t there. Must have been a hallucination. “I got an anonymous tip that Apollo wanted to ask something that I should talk to him about in person.”

“Right now?” Hancock asks. “You know he’s more of a morning lark.”

“Right now,” Nick says. “Are we looking for him or not?”

Hancock shrugs, and they take off through Goodneighbor in search of Apollo. They hear the shouts and gunfire coming by the Third Rail, and after a shared look head that way to investigate. Just another group of drunks and junkies, angry and causing a public disturbance—

—and one familiar blue flamingo shirt trying to sneak by unharmed.

“Dammit,” Hancock scowls, storming through to pull his idiot out before he gets himself killed. Someone swings a tire iron at him and he dodges with ease.

_ TWACK! _

...Apollo isn’t so lucky with the pipe wrench swung at him.

...And neither will be the person who decked him with it once Hancock gets his hands on ‘em.

While Hancock’s preoccupied with the fight, Nick slips in and over to Apollo, cursing as he checks how bad the injury is. Even with what they learned from Vault 113, they’ve been careful so far not to let Apollo get too badly injured when they don’t know what will happen—

Well,  _ someone _ knows what will eventually happen, Nick thinks in aggravation as he drags Apollo away to someplace marginally safer. That “anonymous tipper” of his. A certain “mysterious stranger” who seems more invested in things than he ought to be.

They’re hardly at the edge of the fight before a vibrant, electric blue flicker catches Nick’s attention. He looks down to see Apollo’s face, miraculously fixed, and Apollo’s fluttering eyes, unnervingly glowing blue.

Nick drops him in shock, and immediately cringes. “Whoops.”

“Hu-wha?” Apollo asks, flailing on the ground before he climbs to his feet, unsteady and eyes burning bright. A few of the rioters take notice and freeze, catching the attention of the nearby Triggermen, the random drifters watching the fight (including one in a familiar pair of sunglasses), and eventually working its way through the rest of the crowd, right down to the good ol’ Mayor himself.

“What the  _ fuck?” _ someone says above the mesmerized stupor.

Apollo winces. “Shut uuuup,” he groans. “What are you even doing? My head hurts and I’m really unhappy— just go  _ home.” _

“Hey, look,” someone tries to argue.

“Nooo!” Apollo whines. “Most of you aren’t sober! Get some rest! Drink some water! What do you think you’re— Heeeck! My head hurts, just  _ go hoooome.” _

Something in the sudden eerie quiet and chill of the night, combined with the ominous glow from an off-kilter man, who some of which watched go down in one hit, seems to be enough to make people scatter and take their business elsewhere.

Nick holds his tongue on what he knows about just  _ why _ that worked so easily, but Deacon returns to her newspaper to watch what will happen next and Hancock approaches cautiously.

“You, uh...” Hancock motions at his face. “Got something in your eyes, there?”

“Maybe,” Apollo says, rubbing his eyes. “Feels like burning—” He blinks again and the glow is gone. “What happened?”

Nick clears his throat. “Looked like a bit of  _ percussive maintenance _ to me,” he jokes. “Like hitting a flashlight to turn the lights on.”

Hancock bares his teeth. “I’ll knock  _ your _ lights  _ out.” _

“What are you even  _ talking _ about?” Apollo whines. “What habblened?”

Hancock sighs. “Don’t worry about it. You just happened to walk into a fight and got knocked out for a bit.”

“Oh,” Apollo says, rubbing at his face again. “That explains why... head... hurting... ness...” He looks back at Nick and gasps. “Nick! You’re here!!”

“I’m here,” Nick says.

“I wanted to ask you a question!”

“You don’t need to yell, I’m right here.”

“Oh.” Apollo quiets down. “Um... Who’s... Farmer?”

“Farmer?” Hancock asks, and ignores the sound of Deacon’s newspaper crumpling from surprise.

Nick clears his throat—or mimics the sound in any case—and grimaces. “Why don’t we get somewhere private and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”


End file.
